Collective effort key to curbing corruption in Malawi- ACB

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) spokesperson Egrita Ndala has said the bureau is doing its best in fighting graft, which needs collective effort and improving the perception that people have towards Malawi on corruption.

Ndala: We all need to play our roles

Ndala said in reaction to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for 2017 which was released by Transparency International (TI) on 21 February 2018, which shows that the country has moved down two places from 120 in 2016 to 122 in 2017.

However, despite the drop, Malawi has maintained the score of 31 for three consecutive years. It was ranked 112 in 2015.

“As a country we still have a lot of work to do. If you look at the perception, it is saying it is directly related to other factors like rule of law, civil society, press freedom and citizen, among others, which means there are various players that need to take part that can help in getting a rating perception that is better. So we all need to play our roles,” she said.

Integrity Platform (IP), a local organisation affiliated to Transparency International (TI), agreed with Ndala on collaborative efforts with its chairperson Robert Mkwezalamba expressing the hope that Malawi’s stagnation in corruption will improve.

Mkwezalamba said government has made strides in setting up mechanisms to fight corruption such as strenthen8ng law enforcing agencies like ACB, enacting several legislations and committing to increase resource allocation to law enforcing agencies to improve their performance in curbing corruption.

“We believe that sincere and open dialogue about corruption is the first step to sustainably address the problem of corruption,” said Mkwezalamba.

Corruption has cost Malawi dearly in recent years, with the massive plunder of public resources (Cashgate) exposed in 2013, leading donor to pull out direct budgetary aid to government.

Recently, the country failed to qualify for the second compact of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) due to poor governance and failure to tame corruption.

Governance experts have over the years been lobbying subsequent governments to desist from interfering with the graft-busting body to ensure efficiency of the institution in combating corruption.